Computers and other electronic products, e.g., digital televisions, digital cameras, and cellular phones, often have a memory device to store data and other information. Some conventional memory devices may store information based on the amount of charges on a storage node of the memory cell. The storage node is usually made of semiconductor material such as silicon. Different values of the charge on the storage node may represent different values (e.g., binary values “0” and “1”) of a bit of information stored in the memory cell.
Other conventional memory devices (e.g., phase change memory devices) may store information based on a resistance state of a memory element of the memory cell. The memory element may have a material that can change between different phases (e.g., crystalline and amorphous phases) when programmed. Different phases of the material may cause the memory cell to have different resistance states with different resistance values. The different resistance states of a memory element may represent different values of the information stored in the memory.
In some phase change memory devices, configuring the memory cells to increase data storage density or programming the memory cells to meet some device performance specifications may pose a challenge.